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Sunday, October 28, 2012

Praarambh : A new start for budding Entrepreneurs

Praarambh, as always, was organised as
the first event of Avenues: The Business festival of IIT Bombay.The main theme of Praarambh 2012 was to make
the audience familiar with the process of developing their ideas and moulding
them into a business plan.

Praarambh
is a precursor event to Navomesh which is a flagship event of Avenues. Navomesh
provides a platform for budding entrepreneurs to hone their ideas and present
them in form of B-plan. It also provides them an opportunity to pitch their ideas
before different Venture capitalists. This year as part of Praarambha we had
with us Dr. Meenaxi Dhariwal who is senior faculty at ICFAI Business School,
Mumbai we also had with us Mr. Vikas Verma founder of “The Color Factory”. From
IIT-Bombay we had with us Prof. Amarnath who is one of the most senior faculties
at IIT-Bombay.

The
event began with Dr. Meenaxi Dhariwal asking participants about the ideas they
have which can be turned into profitable business. After this small exercise,
three Ideas were chosen and divided between 6 groups. Each group had to come up
with a best proposal in 30 minutes and pitch its idea within 10 minutes
followed by 2 minutes QnA session from the other group working on the same
Idea. The groups had access to sketch pens, card papers, sticky notes etc and
they were encouraged to be as creative as possible. The participants coming
from different backgrounds suddenly started working as a group and each group
tried its best to complete the task as efficiently as possible. The group task gave
participants a firsthand experience about what it takes to mould an Idea into a
business plan.

After
the workshop by Dr Meenaxi Dhariwal, we had a terse but very insightful speech
from Prof. Amarnath who is the professor in charge of SINE and E-Cell at IIT-B.
Prof. Amarnath shared three important drivers for a business to succeed. He
also made the students realise the importance of simple things such as team
work and how it plays an important role in creating a successful business.

The
last session was taken by Mr. Vikas Verma, Founder & CEO, The Colour
Factory. Vikas Verma, himself an angel investor, gave participants insights
into what an investor looks for before funding a business. He made the audience
aware of different investor forums in India. He also pointed out that at what
time or maturity should they take a decision of approaching an angel investor
or a venture capitalist. Last but not the least, he shared his valuable past
experience with the audience and answered all their queries on how to create a
business plan and pitch their ideas before a venture capitalist.

The
session proved to be a knowledge packed session with a lot of fun activities.
At the end of the day all the participants gathered got a detailed insight into
what it takes to bridge that gap between Idea and Business.

36 comments:

Workshops and conventions like this are a great way for new entrepreneurs to learn the ropes. After all, with so much competition these days, it pays to have an edge in attracting business investments.

I think that Idea and Business is synonymous to Plan and Action. A new start could be trying to incorporate your business with another one, it opens up more options for both parties. Coming up with ideas will be more spontaneous.

That’s what I like in attending sessions like these, fun activities were also part of the seminar. With the knowledge and insightful lectures that I’ve learned, I know my business will flourish. Especially now, I really need an extra income to finance my kids schooling. I’ve read a lot of smart tuition complaints recently, and that’s very alarming.